


not a kiss but a conflict

by Who Shot AR (akerwis)



Category: Hornblower (TV)
Genre: Anger, Fade to Black, Flashback, M/M, Mid-Canon, Non Consensual, POV Third Person, PTSD, Present Tense, Rape, Remix
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-04
Updated: 2010-08-04
Packaged: 2017-10-10 23:19:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 968
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/105512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/akerwis/pseuds/Who%20Shot%20AR
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bush and Kennedy clash belowdecks, in all too familiar a situation for Kennedy.  Set during the beginning of "Mutiny."</p>
            </blockquote>





	not a kiss but a conflict

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Lucifer](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/1275) by Laura Smith. 



Lately, Archie spends his free moments not in books but in thought, tucked away in the darker corners of the _Renown_'s hold.  That he _can_ think at all, and not merely seethe with inchoate rage, is the benefit of the recesses of the ship.  Divorced from the sounds of the crew at work and the captain airing his delusions for all and sundry, he can very nearly think rationally on the matter of poor Horatio's unending watches.

He cannot quite bring that coolness of emotion to young Wellard, though he tries.  It will be necessary to have composure, he knows, should he be required to speak in court on the matter; the Admiralty has no use for acting lieutenants prone to sound and fury, especially when they impugn one of Nelson's own.  Should he care to avoid charges of mutiny and the noose, nothing will be more vital than speaking without that quaver of violence colouring his voice.

At the sound of footsteps, he puts out his lantern and wills himself still, wills the scrabbling rats in the darkness to cover each breath he draws.

Luck is not with him, if ever it has been, and moments after he tries to melt back into the darkness, First Lieutenant Bush's face appears, lit by the glow of the lantern in his hand.  "Mr. Kennedy."

Archie looks up at him: Bush is not tall, but with Archie seated, he has the advantage in height, and always has the advantage in bulk.  He's also standing in front of the least difficult exit from this particular corner of the hold, something Archie notes before he is aware that he has calculated his opportunities for escape in the first place.  "What can I do for you, Mr. Bush?" he asks, his face the neutral expression of any subordinate officer.  He's not about to make obvious insult to a man who has curried favour with Captain Sawyer, tempting though it is.

"There is much you can do, Mr. Kennedy," Bush answers, sounding bored by the question.  For all the sarcastic disaffection in his tone, however, he still takes a step forward, until Archie must either crane his neck to see him or take to his feet himself.  The choice is not difficult: Archie isn't going to peer timidly up through the lamplight to Bush's shadowed face as he continues, "And there is much you have to learn."

This is not an unknown game--or, at least, he suspects it isn't, if the dark edge to Bush's voice is anything to go by.  It is a familiar tone, if one Archie has not had to hear since before before El Ferrol: these are not pleasantries, it says, and if he is not careful, Bush will not let him allow him the rest of his spare time without difficulty.  Through gritted teeth, Archie replies, "I doubt very sincerely, Mr. Bush, that there is anything you can teach me that His Majesty's Navy has already made sure I've learned, and learned well."

Bush folds his arms across his chest.  "I think you don't know your place, Mr. Kennedy."

"And what is my _place_, Mr. Bush?"  One step forward, fixing his eyes on Bush's to keep himself from glancing furtively towards the open space behind him.  It's a bluff, of course, stitched together over the clenching sensation in his chest with broad swathes of anger and impertinence.  Courting open insolence in the face of a superior officer is a risky venture, but Archie's options are growing fewer every moment they continue their conversation; if he can draw Bush into forgetting himself, perhaps he can make an easy escape.  "Beneath you?"

"For starters."

Before Archie has time to react, he's been hauled up by the front of his shirt, scant inches from Bush's face, staring into those hard eyes.  And then Bush's mouth, no more forgiving, is on his.  It is not a kiss but a conflict, Archie using teeth and tongue to fight Bush off as he grapples with the fist holding him close.  He can hear Jack in his ear, can nearly feel his mouth there as he holds Archie down against a cannon.

Jack's missed him, he murmurs, and he'll always find a way back.

He is not sure whether to hope for the telltale taste of almonds, or to dread the possibility.  Simpson would leave off his attentions, or merely knock him about a bit, if he began to have a fit, but there is no promise Bush would do the same.  And the terror of being left insensible where no one might find him by chance threatens to drown him all on its own, weighted down by the possibility of missing the start of his watch and drawing Captain Sawyer's wrath away from Horatio.  He cannot _breathe_, between the fear and Bush's insistent tongue, and now Bush's insistent bulk, pushing him back into the burlap bags of supplies, pressing him down, dragging his arms up over his head and holding them there with one leisurely hand--

"Now!" Jack barks, his breath thick on Archie's face.  "What've you been hiding from us, Kennedy?  I know there's a secret buried in here somewhere."  His free hand trails down from Archie's throat, lingering over his heart before finding its way to his breeches--

\--but it didn't happen that way, that is happening now: Bush leaves off his mouth to curve a rough hand around Archie's prick and drag his callused fingers down its length.  The breath Archie draws in, hard and shallow, makes his chest ache for the effort.  He gasps out a _stop, get off_, but the flashing expression in Bush's eyes, made all the more dangerous in the flickering lamplight, silences him.

The easiest escape left to him now is not to struggle overly.

**Author's Note:**

> Curiously enough, if things happened this way, Archie might've survived Retribution. He sure as fuck wouldn't have trusted Bush worth a damn afterward, let alone enough to risk being shot to help him in a battle.
> 
> ...And then I went and wrote lots of really happy fluffy Archie/William, because this made me saaaaaad.


End file.
